The newly approved LMU budget for the 2008-2009 year requires a $2,000 increase in tuition for undergraduate students and a roughly five percent increase in tuition for graduate students. Last year saw the base student tuition jump from $29,197 to $31,168, a 6.75 percent hike for students.
This year’s 6.3 percent increase for undergrads raises the base tuition to $33,266 for the coming year, really hitting the students where it counts – in their wallets. The university needed to weigh the cost of improving the educational experience at LMU and meeting university goals in the coming years into the ballooning budget for the year and the only way to pay for it, aside from the tuition increase, is with a greater endowment from alumni and other school supporters.
UCLA Group Provides Free Tax Return Help
The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) group on UCLA’s campus provides free assistance for those who need to file tax returns for the previous year. They are open Monday through Friday, from noon to 5 p.m., in Room 2408 in the Ackerman Union in the center of campus.
VITA is open annually from April 1 until the federal income tax filing date of April 15. The service is open to everyone, but primarily helps university students who are low-income employees, earning less than $4,000 per year.
The group offers both paper and electronic filing forms. Also, since the VITA group is an IRS-sponsored program, persons receiving help from them are free from liability for errors found in the filed forms.
Scientists at SoCal Schools Combat Cancer
USC researchers may have discovered a better way of protecting cancer patients from suffering adverse effects from chemotherapy treatments. Whereas the majority of cancer research focuses on attacking the problem of cancer, this study, led by anti-aging specialist Valter Longo, worked on developing better ways of protecting patients from risky but proven means of treating cancer. The study looked at the effects on mice and human cells in culture, but will hopefully soon move onto human trials.
Meanwhile, researchers at UCLA are operating out of the science fiction handbook; they have taken nanotechnology to a new level, creating a machine (the “nanoimpeller”) that stores and releases anti-cancer drugs and can be used to treat more pointedly individual cancer cells rather than bombarding an entire area with radiation treatments.
The nanoimpeller works by responding to a cue from a light shining on the targeted area, which causes the tiny machine to release the anti-cancer drug directly on the targeted cell or cells. Such precision is a tremendous step forward in cancer treatment and proves the viability of nanotechnology, a field that scientists are still just beginning to investigate.
The study was performed on a variety of cultured cancer cells, including highly deadly kinds like pancreatic cancer, to great success, but much more investigation is needed before the nanotechnology can be employed in hospitals around the country.
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